Bidspirit auction | The Blind Sage Who Saw

The Blind Sage Who Saw Only Words of Torah: Chidushei Maharam Tzvi – bound together with Ne’hamat Aryeh - This Sefer is the work of a brilliant and righteous sage, a mitnaged whom the great leaders of Chassidus held in awe – a blind Gaon who saw only words of Torah. Chidushim on Chullin, sermons [with dates, such as “I delivered a sermon in Sokolov in 1856” – meaning toward the end of his life, as noted below]. Second part – Part I was apparently never printed. By Rabbi Moshe Tzvi [Weingarten], rabbi in Makov, Sokolov, and Shedlitz. A towering genius in both revealed and hidden wisdom. He served God with all his strength, and it was told of him that he would fast from Shabbat to Shabbat He was a fierce mitnaged. It is told that on the first day of Pesach he placed a plate of kneidlach [dumplings made of matzah meal] on the window of his home as a protest against the chassidic custom of refraining from eating gebrochts. Despite this, the tzaddikim of the generation respected him greatly and praised him exceedingly. He lived at the time of the Cantonists decree. In Sokolov there was an informer who delivered Jewish children into the hands of the kidnappers. The informer became paralyzed, and rumors spread that this was due to the actions of the rabbi, who had caused this by using practical Kabbalah. As a result, he feared government retaliation and fled the city, and was appointed Av Beit Din and Rosh Yeshivah in Shedlitz. He passed away in 1858 His son was R. David, Av Beit Din of Rishash and later of Kharzil, among the great rabbis of his generation and one of the prominent Chassidim of Kotzk, renowned as both a Gaon and a tzaddik. His son, Rabbi Aharon Yosef Weingarten, also among the Chassidim of Kotzk, ascended to Eretz Yisrael, and his descendants live in Jerusalem. In his son’s introduction: “For nearly all the great ones of his generation, foremost among them the illustrious Av Beit Din, the great gaon of the holy community of Brisk, drank thirstily from his holy words in his responsa like cold waters upon a weary soul”.  Apparently he was referring to the Maharil Diskin. “And for forty years he taught the people and served the congregation of Israel through his instruction, and he returned many from sin through his pleasant words of reproof that emerged from the chambers of his holy heart, in the three Batey Din, of Makov, and afterward in the city of Sokolov, and afterward in the city of Shedlitz, where his honored resting place is”. His son describes the wondrous way in which the Torah teachings in this book were written: “For it was a wonder, for he saw nothing of the matters of this world, and in matters of learning – he studied from books with the smallest of letters like a boy of ten years old, his eye did not dim, and he himself wrote Torah novellae in a beautiful and very elegant script, and these are his holy words which he wrote in those days. The holy tzaddik, our master Rabbi Yitzchak of Vorke, of blessed memory, when he was in Shedlitz in his home, following his sacred custom to visit the mara de’atra, upon seeing this wondrous matter he said of him these words: ‘ For this Jew truly sought from the Holy One, blessed be He, “Enlighten our eyes in Your Torah” – and it was granted to him!’ And likewise he was eulogized with bitter lamentation by the gaon, the chassid, etc., our master Rabbi Shmuel Shinever, author of Ramatayim Tzofim, who when delivering a eulogy before him said that it is not easy to comprehend the power he possessed in the holy Torah, that he saw nothing in the world except the holy Torah”. Some names from among the list of ”promenantin”: Biala – the holy and saintly rabbi of Biala. His son, the chassid Reb Natan David. His son, the chassid Reb Meir Shlomo Yehudah. His son, the chassid Avraham Yehoshua Heshel. His son, the Chatan, Yechiel Tzvi. Rabbi Daniel (?) of Biala, Shmuel Leib the Elder [the Gaon, author of Rimzei D’Chokhmata] Bendin – the sharp chassid Reb Yosef Engel [Rabbi Yosef Engel!! whose father-in-law lived in Bendin] Likava – Reb Hershele Morgensztern, Rebbe of Kotzk Pietrokov – the gaon Rabbi Simcha Meir, Av Beit Din. The gaon and chassid Rabbi Mordechai Horowitz. Pilov – the gaon, Av Beit Din, son of the author of blessed memory. Reb Yosef Morgensztern, son of the Rebbe of Kotzk. Reb Yitzchak Zelig Morgensztern, son of theRebbe of Kotzk. The Gaon R. Dov Ze’ev Rappaport, Av Beit Din [son-in-law of the first Rebbe of Kotzk] Radomsk – Since the owner wishes to bring to the press the books of his father, the gaon of blessed memory, surely it is a mitzvah to assist the owner so that Torah may be magnified and glorified. Today, Sunday, Parashat Peruma, 1891, here in Radomsk, Tzvi Meir HaKohen Rabinowitz.  Ne’hamat Aryeh Responsa, sermons, and Chidushei Chullin By R. Aryeh Leib Binkowitz Warsaw 1891 Rabbi Aryeh Leib Binkowitz was born in Volkovisk, in the province of Grodno, in 1852. He was ordained by R. Yitzchak Elchanan,